Psychoanalysis and therapeutic bond: reflections on a remote care experience in pandemic times

Abstract

This article is an excerpt from a recent research carried out as a Residency Completion Work presented to the Multiprofessional Residency Program in mental health. This study seeks to comprehend the characteristics of psychological telephone assistance in a pandemic situation, based on the experience with the service “Escuta Acolhedora”, provided by the city hall of a city in the interior of São Paulo, emphasizing the therapeutic bond. For this purpose, we aim to understand the organization and functioning of this service, to observe the characteristics of the telephone-established therapeutic bond and to highlight the main potentials and limitations of care in this context. The theoretical basis of the study is psychoanalysis, with emphasis on the application of the “transference” concept to remote care. The experience report method was used, with the writing of a field diary during the psychologist-researcher’s work in the service. The contents of the field diary were subsequently analyzed using the Content Analysis technique. The research revealed relevant signs, indicative of the establishment of efficient bonds, from the psychological and psychoanalytical techniques’ points of view, in telephone calls. It is important to point out
that the “Escuta Acolhedora” experience is a punctual strategy to answer to the psychological suffering generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. We conclude that remote practices on mental health care, whose utilization was consolidated during the Covid-19 pandemic, carry a wide range of possibilities and advantages and that research in this area constitutes a new gap in the literature and, consequently, a new area of practice for the psychologist today.